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| Newt and Bill O'Reilly discuss To Try Men's Souls and Obama's tenure so far |
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Newt and Bill O'Reilly discuss To Try Men's Souls
and Obama's Tenure so far
O'Reilly Factor
October 21, 2009
O'REILLY: "Personal story" segment tonight, you may remember that FOX News analyst Newt Gingrich met with President Obama last spring, talking about education. At the time, the president was riding high. But now, he may have lost his political magic touch. Things are different. And here is Mr. Gingrich to sort it all out.
By the way, his brand new book, and just out, "To Try Men's Souls," a novel about George Washington, which we'll discuss in a couple of minutes. You know, I told Morris I was perplexed about this, but Morris had a pretty good analysis that Obama doesn't think he can turn the economy around that quickly. Afghanistan, he doesn't think he can win there. So he's now setting up an ideological, I guess, war. Is that what's going on?
NEWT GINGRICH, "TO TRY MEN'S SOULS": I think they actually are trying to distract the country.
O'REILLY: Distract it?
GINGRICH: Distract it. If your choice is - imagine you're Rahm Emanuel. And he's like okay, now tomorrow I can have unemployment rising or a fight with FOX News. And next week, I can have health care too expensive or a fight with Rush Limbaugh. And I think they have a deliberate policy of trying to find a way to keep the news media focused on trivia in order to not deal with the real issues because the real issues are all going bad for them right now.
O'REILLY: Right now. Now do you see in '94 the Republicans came back big time because Clinton was having trouble.
GINGRICH: Yeah.
O'REILLY: And they got the Senate, they got the House. You led that. Do you see 2010 the same thing happening?
GINGRICH: It's beginning to build. Charley Cook, who you know has done a lot of analysis, has written several very, very insightful columns where he says there's an unemployment number that doesn't get the headlines. It's called you six. And it's everybody who doesn't have a job, plus everybody who quit looking, plus everybody who has a part-time job, but would really like a full time job. That number's above 16 percent. And in California, it's above 20 percent.
And Cook makes the point to Democrats, and Samuel submitted the same point this week, if you don't focus on creating jobs, it's the old Carville line. It's the economy, stupid. If you don't focus in creating jobs, and you're sitting here in the second summer of an Obama presidency, and we're at 9 or 10 percent unemployment, they're going to go very bad fall.
Now I think they're compounding it with the health bill, which is massively expensive. And energy tax, which is massively expensive. They have no provision for continuing the Bush tax cuts. So they're in the face of a giant tax increase next year.
And all of that's just going to kill jobs. And so, if they have to run next fall as the party of big deficits, big taxes, big bureaucracy, and big unemployment, I think the odds are about 1 in 3 that John Boehner is the next Speaker.
O'REILLY: Okay. So at this point, what is going right for Barack Obama?
What's going right for him?
GINGRICH: Well, first of all.
O'REILLY: And I did want - you are an Obama basher.
GINGRICH: No, I mean.
O'REILLY: No, I mean, you met with him. You guys had a good dialogue. But you haven't been kicking the heck out of them from the gym.
GINGRICH: Look, we were working with Secretary Duncan. Education, trying to get.
O'REILLY: Right.
GINGRICH: .every state to adopt rules to allow more charter schools. There are some things we're doing right. We tried to help put him on health care. And they wouldn't go in the direction that was helpful.
I think the president's greatest strength right now is that he is likeable. And he has a very likeable family. And that's not a small thing. I mean, being likeable as president carries you a fair distance. I think second, people want him to succeed. I mean, it's important to remember we only get one president. Presidents are uniquely powerful figures. And almost every American deep down wants to be proud of the president. They want the president to do.
O'REILLY: And most Americans, you believe, still want him to succeed?
GINGRICH: They still want him, and all the polling data shows that. If you say to people do you want him to succeed? Because you got three and a half more years of it.
O'REILLY: But all the polls show that the people who don't like him are so passionate, you saw the tea parties and all of that.
GINGRICH: Yeah.
O'REILLY: And they're so against him, you know, that.
GINGRICH: Yeah.
O'REILLY: .is that number rising?
GINGRICH: Well, Rasmussen has a very interesting number, which I had never seen until a couple weeks ago. He takes strongly favor and strongly unfavor.
O'REILLY: Right.
GINGRICH: .and he now shows, President Obama with about a 13 point deficit, about 39 to 26. 39 percent strongly unfavorable, 26 strongly favorable. If I were the president, that would start to worry me. You start getting 40, 45 percent of the American people committed to your defeat.
O'REILLY: Right. That's historical number. And.
GINGRICH: And you have a big problem.
O'REILLY: ..that's why, you know, he feels that FOX News fosters that and encourages those people.
Now the book that - and the Speaker writes fiction, but it's pretty much fact, right? I mean.
GINGRICH: Well, I think if you want to know what is a real commander in chief like, and you want to know what is real leadership in hard times.
O'REILLY: George Washington?
GINGRICH: George Washington crossing the Delaware in 1776 on Christmas Day is about as miraculous a story as there is in American history. And we wanted to share with the American people. We wrote it for this fall. We thought this is the fall when there's going to be a lot of Americans who say tell me America can get its act together. Tell me we can have a better future.
And you can't read George Washington without being proud to be an American and convinced we can do it again.
O'REILLY: Do you think that he was a, equal to Lincoln? I think Lincoln was the best president. Do you think he was.
GINGRICH: No, I think Washington is. Well, if you take Washington's career.
O'REILLY: Right.
GINGRICH: Remember, Lincoln is president.
O'REILLY: Right his whole career, French and Indian War up until the presidency.
GINGRICH: Eight years in the field.
O'REILLY: Right.
GINGRICH: .as general.
O'REILLY: Right.
GINGRICH: He only visits Mount Vernon for one week in eight years.
O'REILLY: Martha had a lot of downtime.
GINGRICH: The man who, well, she'd go - but she'd stay with him every winter. The man who presides over the constitutional convention. The man who creates the presidency, he's - we all stand on his shoulders. I think Lincoln's unbelievable. I'm with you. You see how fast he learns.
O'REILLY: Yeah, amazing what he did.
GINGRICH: But Washington lives being the man who could be father of his country.
O'REILLY: All right, I always enjoy your books. "Try Men's Soul" about George Washington. Newt Gingrich, thanks, Mr. Speaker, we appreciate it.
GINGRICH: Thank you. |
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